This is one of the MANY specs I have planned for my MM main, I have about 5 other build variants that include a mix of Assassin for perma stealth and non perm stealth, Nightblade for increased finisher damage, a MM/Ranger/Sin hybrid that grants base stealth but has a Silence finisher, and all other kinds of things. I'll post the rest when I get home. All of these builds will be for end game pvp.

I did a decent amount of pvp in beta 5 and I don't think stealth on a MM/ranger build will be as useful as increasing damage. I just don't think opening from stealth as a class that can't stun-lock from stealth would give you such an advantage that its worth dropping damage talents for.

Obviously this could change since its just beta and noone has done 50 pvp. =p

I'm currently running T1's with about half my T1 set (Or equivalent), been testing multiple builds and surprisingly, a hybrid is floating my DPS boat better than a dedicated build has. And an added bonus is, i've picked up most, if not all of the utility, making this an amazing all-rounder spec for solo, questing, dungeons and even PvP.

-Blind
-Rain of Arrows
-Perma Stealth
-OH SHI- melee stun
-Bonus hit chance
-Escape Artist
-Fleeting Instincts works and is activatable while in stealth (though switching back to predator will destealth you - FFFFF!)
-Ranged, AoE, damaging silence
-Armour debuffs from Ranger and Marksman both stack (Not with eachother) with the proc from Hawk's Talon (A relatively easy to obtain and excellent bow) resulting in ~1k armour off the target, coupled with Penetrating Shots, you're bypassing a LOT of mitigation.

I'm sure there are better min/max builds out there for those specific purposes, but 22/22/22 is seeing me top Sabs and Stormcallers on single target, by a large margin (Yeah, they're AoE I know) and approaching Assassin damage at range. Imp Trick shot -> Headshot -> Rain of Arrows is the AoE component, which works just fine in 99% of cases. The downsides i've encountered with this setup are thus:

- Build time. You'll notice a total of 8 buffs/debuffs to maintain, as well as 6 procs including poisons, which obviously increase in frequency as attack speed builds through buffs. That's a lot to maintain, and as a result, your DPS burst is quite lacking. Something that doesn't really matter for PvE so much, but there are undoubtedly better PvP specs.

-Versatility. I can queue for WFs, quest in between and LFG all with the one spec. It has excellent utility, mobility and a plentiful helping of DPS.

- Energy starvation. As with many Rogue builds, the ever-present error message telling you you're out of energy is here. This is vastly mitigated by Anthem of Fervor or Gift of Life (Or w/e the Chloro equiv is called), but after using Hit n Run, you'll still find yourself idle for fractions of a second after each GCD.

- Investment. Basically, this won't work until 50. It's not a levelling build, and is designed with gear and flexibility in mind. Once you get all yur points in though, it's an extremely versatile build.

- Pet not required. With only 22 pts in Ranger, the pet sucks, and will die almost instantly on most expert bosses. I hate pets in Rift, so this is boon for me. Upside for pet lovers is, you can still summon him and set him to passive, name him, pat his head etc.

This works for me, and I have had several nice comments from parties running a parser remarking at my high DPS output. Depending on the boss fight (ofc) this reliably pulls 350-500 DPS party-buffed (No parse, so yes, it's circumstantial - but just try it out!) in my admittedly poor gear, with the law of large numbers ensuring procs over a 5min or so fight. Just remember to keep up RFS and SF as much as possible!

Last edited by Avi; 04-10-2011 at 06:56 PM.
Reason: Clarified that DPS claim is with normal 5-man party buffs up.

hate to sound like a jerk but i would say big reason everyone thinks MM is so worthless in pve(it is still bad but not as bad as people think) is because 90percent of the forum posting population is playing MM with these awful specs..

hate to sound like a jerk but i would say big reason everyone thinks MM is so worthless in pve(it is still bad but not as bad as people think) is because 90percent of the forum posting population is playing MM with these awful specs..

;\

At the very least, post your spec and a parse if you're going to sling mud like that, otherwise keep it constructive please

For PVP I think marksman and and to a lesser degree ranger just are not good.
Ranger at least get a heal debuff from the pet.
Neither does impressive damage compared to other classes and neither can has the CC ro compensate.